mcooper@globa-lingua.org

(502) 681-6395

About

Reinventing the alphabet? Not really. Just changing the way we teach it. For centuries, we have taught the alphabet in the same order in which it has come down to us from its earliest beginnings. Now there’s a better way that is modern and scientific and based on how we actually use and write the letters.

The Muscle Movement Method is a new system that uses a grid of three circles and two vertical lines to help students form the letters, and it teaches the letters in a different sequence from the traditional ABC order. It takes advantage of similarities in movements of the muscles to “build” each letter upon the shape of the one before.

Our Mission

Globa-Linga Press was founded in Seattle in 2014. The goal is simple: Sell books at fair market value to people who would buy one anyway, and use all the profits to promote education—especially for girls—anywhere in the world where local funding is insufficient.

About the Author

The Power of Letters creator and author Matthew Cooper began teaching in 1979 in Istanbul, Turkey. Here’s his story:

I was passing through that fascinating city and happened onto an opportunity to teach English at a local Turkish volunteer organization that also organized summer work camps in small villages around the country. I ended up staying there almost three years and found that I liked teaching as much as I liked languages, working at a variety of private English schools as well as the American and British consulates in Istanbul. My experience there—as well as my study of the way that the Roman alphabet was adapted to the Turkish language in 1928 by Ataturk—planted in my imagination the first seeds of the ideas that would become the series of books called The Power of Letters.

Later, I taught for 15 years in my own private English school in Japan, where the Roman alphabet was adapted to the Japanese language. I also taught in the public elementary schools and a vocational college in the small town where my daughter was born near Nagoya. (She’ll graduating from college in March 2017 in Miyazaki with a degree in veterinary medicine. Amazing how time flies!) While there, I also got a master’s degree in education through the overseas program of the College of New Jersey. And I taught ESL (English as a Second Language) for more than six years in the public school system in Kentucky, where almost all of my students spoke Spanish, coming from Mexico and Central America.

Similar to my experience in Turkey and Japan, learning and using Spanish with my students impressed me with the amazing global reach of this surprisingly simple and beautiful invention: the Roman (or Latin) alphabet. Inspired by certain aspects of the Chinese-based writing system normally used for Japanese, and using my ESL students as “guinea pigs” for the process, I began to organize and systematize the teaching method that I finally called The Muscle Movement Method.

Of course, it’s not completely original; many teachers have used some elements of this system. However, The Power of Letters is the only book I’ve found that uses the approach in a complete, start-to-finish course of learning presented in a lively, colorful, “kid-friendly,” and ready-to-use publication that can be used just as well in classrooms as for homeschooling. We currently have the book available in English and Spanish, but many more languages are planned.

I also wanted to do something positive for the world. I knew from the moment I drew up the outline for the first book that I would dedicate all of the profits from these books, after operating costs and raw materials, to efforts that promote education around the world, especially for girls. Your purchase can help spread the “Gift of Literacy” to others who might not otherwise be blessed with such an awesome tool for self-empowerment. At the same time, you give your own child a fun, engaging, and proven vehicle for their first steps in a lifetime of reading and writing.